“Step aside,” a gruff voice commanded to the griffons crowded about the yellow tape. The stocky griffon guard granted passage to a shorter, slimmer griffoness, keeping the other riffraff out of the crime scene. Several guards stood at attention near the entrance to the slaughter house, and the griffoness made her way inside.

Within was a slaughter, not of the usual kind, but of the griffon variety. Blood and vomit coated the floor and walls, and the shine of metal tools could only barely be seen beneath the gore that covered them. The griffoness grimaced, holding her dinner down such as the guards were doing, and continued to go farther in. The small city of Parthona hadn't seen anything like this, at least not in recent memory, and so the griffoness struggled to keep composed along with her peers.

She pointedly avoided the bodies and the filth that coated them, stepping completely around them and into the back room where the meat was held. She pushed the doors open and was met with dozens of caged animals. They retreated back as far as they could within their cages, eyes filled with fear. Their fingers grasped the bars above and behind them, as if trying to pull themselves away from her.

“Two dead humans in the back, three dead griffons up front. From what we can gather, whoever did this started here with the humans and butchered his or her way out– no pun intended.” The speaking griffon was still examining the bodies of the humans, which appeared to be killed with blunt force trauma. “Our culprit bashed these humans’ heads against the cages, and then moved up front. These bodies are each nearly three days old however.”

“Today is Monday, correct?” the griffoness asked. “That means that whoever was responsible killed these two, knowing that the stench would alert the workers when they came back on Monday, today. These two were killed as a decoy.”

“So why kill the others up front?” the examiner questioned, still prodding the dead human corpse with a scalpel. “Why not just make your way out and leave it at that?”

“Why do griffons kill at all? Who knows, some are twisted and some aren’t. It isn’t our place to understand why, it’s our place to catch them and stop them from doing it again.” The griffoness turned to the doors leading out. “One question, however.”

The medical examiner looked up at her. “What?”

“What griffon would need to kill his way out of a human slaughterhouse? What was he doing here in the first place?” She narrowed her eyes on a peculiar blood stain to the right of the double doors and moved toward it. “Did he sneak in inside a cage?”

“That wouldn’t be possible ma’am, all of the cages are specifically designed to allow full sight of the human. Anyone on the street would see a griffon hiding in a cage. It is also policy that no cage is covered at any time.” The examiner once again went back to prodding the humans.

“Could our killer have gotten in through a back way?” The griffoness lit a match as she peered at the blood stain against the wall, casting grim shadows across her beak.

“No, the shop is set against the mountain. And we’ve already seen the blueprints, there are no access tunnels or escape routes set up around this entire district. The only way in was by shipment, but even that is highly improbable as an insertion method.”

Eyes widening, the griffoness stared pointedly at the smear on the wall. “Could it have been a human?” she asked quietly. The examiner in the back looked up again and laughed.

“A human? Hah! Okay, and then after murdering all these griffons, he moved to Equestria, studied law, and bailed Sparkle out of a felony. Come now, Miss, be realistic!” He shook his head and went back to work. “A human, ha!”

The griffoness grabbed the griffon and pulled him to his paws, leading him to the wall. She lit another match and held it close so as to illuminate the mark, and the griffon’s eyes widened. “Then what do you make of this?” she asked him.

A single smudged print betrayed a large amount of evidence to the griffons. The print of a human hand, smeared in blood and pressed against the wall for them to find. “It could’ve been one of those two over there, ma’am.”

“No, they were killed right there on the spot, with barely any struggle at all. They couldn’t have made it over here if they were bleeding out over there.” The griffoness let go of the other griffon and grew concerned. “So what do you think this means?”

“Ma’am, unless a human was gifted by the Seven a brain capable of intelligent thought and bewildering vicious tendencies, then I highly doubt that one was responsible. The very idea is ludicrous.” He watched the griffoness pace about the room, her gaze laid directly on the floor beneath her.

“There have been rumors for a few years now of intelligent humans learning to sign with hoof language, play instruments, and do incredible tricks. Whose to say that a griffon didn’t teach a human to kill as well?” The griffoness was met with a sigh from the griffon.

“A human can kill, yes, but this effectively? I doubt it. Two humans and three griffons in three days, drop a day actually, so two days. No one heard anything and not much struggle was involved, meaning that your ‘killer human’ took them by surprise, real quiet-like.”

The griffoness rested her beak on a claw, staring at the two human bodies. Narrowing her eyes, she motioned to the other griffon and made her way to the double doors. “Caleb, come with me.” The griffon sighed and followed the griffoness to the more grisly section of the building, albeit very hesitantly.

Striding into the room, the griffoness winced at the state of the bodies, but forced herself to observe them fully. One body– propped up against a wall– was perforated dozens of times along the left side of his body, along the neck and ribcage. The murder weapon itself, a hefty carving knife, rested inside the body’s forehead all the way up to the hilt.

Caleb pointed at this dead griffon, giving the griffoness the rundown. “This one was killed first. We assume that the killer swept in from beside and held his victim’s beak closed while stabbing the victim repeatedly before burying the weapon in his head. The body then slid down and came to a rest against the wall.

Following Caleb’s claw to the left, the griffoness was shown the body in the center of the room. The body was missing its right hind leg and left claw, and the murder weapon was also embedded in the victim’s flesh. A cleaver was jammed amidst the shattered beak of the dead griffoness, with pieces of yellow beak scattered about her chest and face.

“The streak of blood leading from this point of the room to where she currently is, nearer to the exit, suggests that she tried to get away even after having her hind leg removed. It seems that the limb was removed with one fell blow, after which our killer turned her over to get the killing blow in. He did, as the cleaver chopped straight through her left forearm and obliterated her beak, getting buried in the center of her face as she died from either shock or blood loss.”

The final body nearest to the exit made both Caleb and the griffoness flinch at the cruelty inflicted upon it. It hung by a few chains, barely even recognizable as a griffon except for the remnants of beak and hind paws. Caleb recomposed himself before explaining what he could only assume based on the rest of the room.

“There was a struggle, an extremely violent one, at that. Sometime during the brutalization, the victim forcefully expelled his stomach contents at various points in the room before having his wings broken, sawn off, and tossed aside. Presumably afterwards, the victim’s forelegs were hatcheted off. Finally, his face was bashed in with a meat tenderizer found coated with gray matter, pointing to a savage beating that got through all the way to the brain. The killer finally decided to make a statement and string the poor bastard up for every one of us to see.”

Caleb snatched an evidence bag from a passing griffon and vomited in it, relieving himself of the disgust that had been building. Coming back to his full height, the griffon wiped his beak with his claw, glaring at the hanging body. “Sick fuck.”

The griffoness kept her gaze alternating between the three bodies, holding her beak in thought. Caleb looked over at her watching the scene with a greater look of concern than before. She turned to him and asked, “What kind of griffon forgoes using his claws to kill? Or even his beak? Either are sufficiently lethal, to a great degree, even. So why commit every murder with a weapon? Unless our murderer is lacking claws and a beak, that is.”

“Or our murderer knew that his claws or beak could leave something behind if he wasn’t careful.” Caleb leveled a glare at the griffoness, pointedly telling her to shut up with one look. However, she didn’t listen, and instead pressed the question.

“Does he look careful to you?”

The griffons in the room glanced about and frowned. “Look. You can go off and chase after your ‘intelligent human’, but until you’ve got some solid evidence, you’re on your own. The rest of the department won’t agree to dumping resources into a wild human chase, the very idea is preposterous. I won’t stop you from pursuing your theory, but expect no help from us.”

The griffoness gave him a grim smile and rested her claw on his shoulder. “I understand, Caleb. I’ll find something and bring the culprit in, human or not. Thank you.” She turned and left through the front as a multitude of camera flashes assaulted her. The light from outside vanished as the doors swung shut, and Caleb sighed.

“Get those reporters farther back, they’ll only make a bad situation worse.”

One of the guards nodded and slipped outside to pass the order on to the others, and another bout of explosive light hit the grisly scene within, illuminating the butchered bodies in a flash of horror. Caleb screwed his eyes shut and held a breath. Releasing it, he looked up towards the ceiling. “You better catch this bastard, Serin.”

Luna’s Moon shone a pale light down upon the alleyways of Parthona, casting shadows that were more visible than any physical object. A long, black figure stretched across the cobblestone walk, swaying gently from side to side. It moved silently, casually, as if moving without sound was as natural as breathing. Yet it did not breathe.

For shadows do not breathe, no. But the being that the shadow belonged to, its chest heaved with the great lungfuls of air it so greedily consumed. For such a being lived to consume. It consumed the light with its shadow. It consumed the air with its breaths. It consumed life with its glee.

The being shivered as it struggled to pull the ragged, itchy cloth tighter around it, trying and failing to keep itself warm. Its naked body grew small bumps all over its skin, its teeth chattered within its mouth. The small stones of the road irritated its feet as loose pebbles became lodged between its toes. And yet it was happy.

The cold being inhaled, remembering the smells and the excitement in the air. The noises of its victims and the slick feeling of blood trailed across smooth stone. The terror, the unrelenting terror of the unknown, arrived to end you. The loss they felt in that single instance of seeing him exit the room and standing. The loss of what they thought they knew.

The being liked that expression a lot. It wanted to see that face again. The faces of those who are both terrified, and confused as to why they are terrified. They are confused by their own horror. For an animal set to be butchered, to butcher them. It’s too much for them to understand before they are removed from the mortal coil.

The being pulled its arms out from under the dirty cloth that draped over its large form and turned its hands in the moonlight. These were killer’s hands, and they would strike again. The hands clenched and unfurled over and over again as their owner watched them closely. Enraptured by its own appendages, it hardly noticed a small griffon approach it with a lantern.

The light caused the human to flinch, taking a step back in defense from the revealing glow. The griffon holding the lantern jerked back as well, momentarily startled by the human’s sudden movements. “Hey, hey… where’s your owner? You get caught out here and you’ll be sent to the block,” the griffon said as if speaking to a lost puppy.

Reaching into a satchel bag behind him, the griffon pulled a strip of meat, salted and preserved, for the human. “Here, now. Come on, c’mere.” The griffon slowly backed up as he attempted to lead the human somewhere. The human complied, taking a few slow steps forward. The griffon smiled and continued to lure the human further into the alley, eventually getting to a dead end.

The griffon placed the lantern down and reached behind into his bag once again, pulling a curved knife from the satchel. That was a lot of human meat standing there, at least a hundred and seventy pounds worth. The griffon placed the strip of meat on the ground, and the human continued to gingerly walk forward. It reached the strip and huddled down, very slowly, to pick it up.

The griffon smiled and raised the knife, preparing for a quick, meaty stab to the brain. The knife never reached its target as the griffon was pressed against the wall behind him with enough force to empty his lungs and make him drop the knife. The human’s hands raced out from beneath its ragged cloak and enclosed around the griffon’s throat, tightening immediately.

The griffon was unable to grab the human’s arms, as his own were pinned by the human’s elbows while it pressed its thumbs into his windpipe. The griffon looked up at the phenomenally strong human, terror spread throughout his face at the beast in front of him. A smile was spread on the human’s face as it chewed the strip of chicken jerky it was lured with. The last thing the griffon would see was a human, smiling merrily whilst eating the bait that was placed for its demise.

The limp, piss-soaked body slumped to the ground, the stench of fear rising quickly from the corpse. The stench of death would follow later, and the human felt almost melancholic that it would miss the smell. Digging through the victim’s bags, the human extracted more of the dried meat, thirty Griffonian bits, and an old rusty key. Throwing away the currency, the human examined the key and looked back down at the griffon.

On the satchel was a small emblem stitched into the flap: a pommel with a feather instead of a blade. Turning the key over in its hands, the human smiled again and tossed it into the air, whistling as it caught the trinket. Taking a pause in its tune, the human took a bite of jerky and made its way to the wall making up the end of the alleyway, sitting down and wrapping itself tighter in its rags. The moon slowly moved away from the alley, leaving the human and its ill-fated victim in darkness.

Author's Note

Never thought I'd write something based off someone else's work. Feels weird. Will post chapters, but only occasionally. Just a small project I've been mulling over for a bit.